The G-man hurled himself straight at the man with the gun, but its owner wasn’t a tangible opponent. There was suddenly nothing in the world for Jackson but a cloud of vapor that spurted from the weapon and blotted out everything before the G-man’s eyes. Jackson fell forward into the waiting arms of the man whose face belonged to some underworld rat, but whose eyes were those of Secret Agent X.
“Take his legs, Bates,” Agent X said sharply to the man in the black mask. “We haven’t a second to throw away. I am afraid I lost too much time already, talking to Jackson; but I wanted to make sure of his voice.”
“Right,” clipped Bates. He dropped his pipe into the palm of his hand and assisted the Agent in carrying Jackson into the adjoining bathroom. Then the door was closed on X and the G-man.
Harvey Bates, the Secret Agent’s trusted lieutenant, knew that when the door opened again, the white-faced underworld rat, who had accompanied him to the G-man’s hideout, would exist only in memory. Agent X would become another personality, a man with a new face and a new voice.
Never would Harvey Bates cease to marvel at the impersonations of his chief. Never would he stop wondering about the true appearance of this man of mystery. Yet for all his natural curiosity, an almost reverential respect for his employer prevented Bates from asking questions. He was satisfied with knowing that Agent X had but one objective—to carry the war against crime to its just conclusion or to die in the attempt.
After an incredibly short interval, G-man Henry Jackson stepped from the bathroom. Anyone of average perception would have supposed that the man wearing Jackson’s clothes, Jackson’s features, and speaking with Jackson’s voice, was G-man Jackson. Even Bates, who had seen such transformations many times before, could not suppress a gasp of astonishment at the new appearance of Secret Agent X. A faint flicker of amusement lighted the piercing eyes of Agent X. Then it was gone, and the eyes were once more the windows of a keen, cool-thinking brain.
“You will remain here,” said Agent X, speaking in Henry Jackson’s voice. “When Jackson regains consciousness, pump him for every bit of information you can get. Find out where he got his tip on this scheduled killing. Find out, if you can, just what these white-cross killings mean. There’s an epidemic of them, and I don’t mind admitting that I’m in the dark as to the motive.”
“You, sir?” Bates asked.
Used to interpreting Bates’s laconic speech, X answered as he went through the door: “I’m keeping Jackson’s appointment for him, at the corner of Commerce and Bedford.”
A TAXI rolled with slow uncertainty up Bedford Street. The fare, a man in a silk hat, leaned forward and craned his white-scarfed neck as if in an effort to find some familiar building. At last, he impatiently ordered the driver to a halt, got out, paid his fare, and continued up the street on foot.
A shabbily-dressed man shuffled along the street toward the man in the top-hat, who stopped him and asked pleasantly: “Could you tell me where J.O. Smith resides? I am looking for Mr. Smith and have no more definite address than Bedford Street.”
The shabby man all but snickered. Possibly he was drunk. He pointed toward the next corner. “You’ll find what you’re lookin’ for right up there.”
The man in the silk hat thanked the other and continued toward the corner. The shabby man turned and cat-footed along behind him. When the man in the topper was almost at the corner, the shabby fellow uttered a shrill whistle.
Men came out of the shadow. Men seemed to grow out of the pavement. The silk-hatted man stopped, turned dazedly about. “What do you want?” he demanded firmly.
Yellow light from the street lamp, mirrored in gun steel, spoke more eloquently than words. These men were killers. The night was suddenly hideous with their murderous racket. Gun flame flared on the white face of the man who was their prey. The man who had worn the silk hat spun around on one foot, his arms jerking up toward his chest. Then he slithered to the pavement and twitched beneath a second barrage of lead. These men made sure.
Two of the killers knelt beside the victim a moment, reached across the sprawled body. Then one crawled around the body once, sprang up, and threw something white into the gutter. Just as he rejoined his fellow murderers, a car squealed around the corner on two wheels. A searchlight beam fingered toward the huddle of gunmen. One of the killers shot out the lamp. Before the echo of the shot was lost, some one uttered a hoarse cry: “Feds!”
Two men sprang from the car. A panicky flurry of lead from the killers, as they scrambled in retreat up the alley, smashed into the G-men’s car. The foremost of the two men winced, clutched at his arm. “Nicked me, Jackson,” he said, tensely. “We’re not too late to give them what it takes.”
“Okeh, Parker!” It was the voice of Jackson, but it came from the lips of Secret Agent X. He sprinted ahead of Parker to the entrance of the alley. The whine of shots greeted him. He sprang back against a wall, dragging Parker with him.
Somewhere, police whistles were shrieking frantically. He could see the band of killers halfway down the alley. They had stopped, and the reason was apparent a moment later.
At the opposite end of the alley, a car had drawn up. A machine gun voiced a preliminary stutter. More Feds. Special Agent Weston had sent reinforcements, acting on Henry Jackson’s report.
Agent X gripped Parker’s arm. “Hell’s going to bust. We’re going to be on the receiving end of things. There’s only one way out for the rats—right through us.”
Across the alley from where they crouched, some shadow-shrouded person stumbled into an ash barrel. Parker’s wound must have been giving him fits, for he shot, indiscriminately and without warning, at the sound. Parker’s shots drew fire. Between two ash cans, a yellow, pinched face was flared by the flame from the muzzle of an automatic.
Parker jerked forward, tearing himself madly from the Agent’s fingers, stretched to detain him. Parker pitched face down to the alley pavement. The toes of his shoes made ugly, scratching sounds as his legs twitched convulsively.
X sent one glance up the alley. The killers were coming in his direction on the run, lashed into a stampede by machine gun slugs that rattled and ricocheted through the night. X crouched, sprang to Parker’s side and flattened himself beside the G-man. Parker’s breath was coming in crackling gasps. He was trying to talk, garbling something about, “Get Lewey Cassino.”
A lead slug mashed the brick, scant inches from X’s head. X flopped toward the ash cans where he had seen the lean face of the gunman who had pumped lead into Parker. He wormed his way between the cans, stopped, peered out into the alley. The gunmen were covering themselves well, scattering in a sort of guerrilla warfare maneuver. They would shoot it out with the reinforcement of Feds Weston had sent out.
A long sign rustled somewhere in the dark cranny behind the ash cans. X hauled himself farther back into the shadows and planted his hand squarely in the middle of a heaving chest. Hot fingers groped and hooked over X’s wrist.
“The Feds,” a voice whispered. “Tell Squid and the Brain I got a Fed before he—he—” A short, hacking cough racked the chest beneath X’s hand. Then came the quivering breath of a dying man.
His eyes more used to the gloom, X saw that he and Parker’s killer were back against the foundation of a building. A swinging coal-cellar door was within a few feet of the dying man’s feet. A slight opening at the bottom of the door told X that it was not hooked. He reached out and pulled the door open. Already, in his alert mind, a brilliant plan was forming.
He inched through the opening in the basement of the building, found a footing on top of the coal, seized the gunman’s legs, and dragged the man in after him. Any sound he made was masked by the gun battle in the alley and street outside.
THE AGENT pulled out his compact flashlight and turned it on the face of the man who had run into one of Parker’s flying slugs. The face was narrow, the cheeks and chin all one sickly shade of yellow. Blood fringed the full, sensuous lips. The squinting eyes stared glas
sily into the light without wincing. Dying, this man was as any other to Agent X and he could look upon him only with compassion. Living, he would have hounded him to the edge of the earth; for Lewey Cassino was a desperado long wanted by the government men. He had packed a gun for Wolf Hollis, until federal men removed Hollis from the Public Enemy list.
X propped his flashlight up between chunks of coal, got out his compact makeup kit, and set to work. He had met Lewey Cassino once before. He knew some of the gunman’s characteristics. Of Lewey’s present connections, he knew nothing except that he was a member of a band of ruthless killers who marked their victims in a peculiar fashion. As Lewey Cassino, Agent X might learn much of the scheme behind what the newspapers called the white-cross killings. As Lewey Cassino, he would be on the inside of a murder machine that was rolling on and on like a juggernaut, killing without apparent motive.
Moments later, when the crackle of gun fire became less incessant, X crawled from his hiding place, the living replica of the dead man he had left in the basement. He must hurry on where Lewey had left off, but with an entirely different objective.
X took in the situation at a glance. Three gunmen were backing in his direction, exchanging a few wild, scattered shots with the hunting Feds. At the end of the alley, a car was ready, purring softly, waiting to carry the killers to safety. When that car left, it must carry Agent X with it—into the criminal hideout itself.
It was the most dangerous impersonation he had ever attempted, for Lewey Cassino was to have been shot on sight by the G-men. And if his disguise failed, he could hope for no mercy from the criminals. But it would not fail. The most convincing part of his makeup was yet to be added. X pulled from his pocket the automatic he had taken from Lewey Cassino. He pressed the muzzle against the fleshy part of his arm and pulled the trigger.
Agent X reeled directly into one of the three gunmen. Hands clutched at him. A rusty voice whispered: “Lewey, old pal! They got you?”
“Damn near it!” X gasped. The pain of the self-inflicted wound lent a convincing quiver to his voice. “Give us a hand, quick!”
“Sure, Lewey,” said the gunman. “Never went back on a pal yet. That’s Squid’s car out there. Hang on, pal!” He seized X about the waist and half carried him to the waiting car.
After the last shot had been fired in the direction of the zig-zagging car that was carrying Agent X and four criminals away from the scene of slaughter, Federal men under the direction of Special Agent Weston, took stock. Besides Parker, two other G-men were dead. Another was in a screaming ambulance, racing with death. Others had minor wounds.
Two of the criminals had fallen. The rest had escaped, either in the car or on foot. Two criminals against possibly four gallant government men. Weston shook his sandy head gravely. Too high a price had been paid for two rats’ skins.
Weston went around to Bedford Street, where a knot of morbid onlookers were being held back by city police. Weston knew in advance what he would find in the center of that group of people—the body of a man, crossed out, in the literal sense of the term. For the man in the silk hat had carried half a dozen slugs with him to the pavement.
Entirely surrounding the body, was a circle, hastily drawn in white paint by means of a small tennis-court marker which the police found in the gutter. A white cross was drawn in the same manner through the center of the circle and, consequently, across the body of the man.
Another white-cross killing. Here was the sign of sudden death, frequently applied by the City Safety Council to mark the spot of a motor tragedy. But here the sign was employed to mark sudden death at the hands of a maniac-mob—an epidemic of murder.
“It’s Randolph Corlears, the mouthpiece,” a policeman said to Weston. “He recently went into partnership with Charles McAdam—a criminal law firm, it was. When they bump mouthpieces, it looks like the old gang-war to me.”
Weston shook his head. “That’s a good theory, but it don’t apply to other white-cross killings. It’s as though some one had loosed a whole asylum full of criminally insane on the streets of New York and instilled a single monomania into the whole gang.” Weston’s face was grim and haggard. “And that is just about as unsound a theory as yours, officer.”
CHAPTER II
Undercover Gamble
A ONE-TIME speakeasy in an East Side basement, because of its fortifications, was admirably suited to the purposes of Mr. Murphy. Men who came to see Mr. Murphy—called “Squid” because there was something reminiscent of a devilfish’s tentacles about Murphy’s lean arms and continually squirming fingers—frequently needed the protection of steel doors and hidden traps.
Watching Squid Murphy pace the floor, was a woman. She was blonde, her hair clipped and combed as a man’s. She wore a sleazy, cheap imitation of a dress some movie queen had introduced two years ago. She chain-smoked cigarettes and ground them out on the floor with the toe of a badly cracked gilt slipper. Her name was Sally Vergane. She had been a queen in her own right—gun-toting moll of the infamous Wolf Hollis.
Squid Murphy swung on the woman suddenly, took her rounded chin in his lean fingers, and rocked her head gently back and forth. His fishy eyes seemed to see straight through her.
“Cut it,” he said hoarsely. “Cut looking at me like that. I got enough on my mind, without you starin’ me into the bughouse.”
“What mind?” Sally Vergane sneered. “If Wolf Hollis was alive and runnin’ this outfit, he’d be out there with the punks, takin’ the same dangers they’re takin’.”
“And getting hisself rubbed out, don’t forget,” said Squid. “Besides, I ain’t runnin’ this mob. I got to answer to the Brain. The answer’s got to be good. If the boys don’t plug this Corlears guy and do a swell job of it, the Brain loses his hundred grand, we miss our cut, and the Brain gives me hell.”
Squid Murphy’s normally dark face paled at the thought. “Are you nuts? Sometimes, I guess you are. Listen, when the Brain stepped in where Wolf Hollis got off, and took over the runnin’ of this gang, I told him I didn’t like the idea of me never seein’ him. I don’t like guys who prowl around in the dark. I had a flashlight, see? Next time he showed up, turnin’ the lights off as he came, I put the flashlight on him. What I saw gave me the creeps. He had on a black hood that covered his whole head and face. He had eyes like the Devil himself—just slanting slots in the black cloth. He had a silenced gun in each hand—”
Lights in the room snapped out. There was something ominous in even the pop of the switch, something that choked Murphy into silence and forced a small scream from Sally Vergane as she threw herself into Murphy’s arms.
“Shut up!” Murphy snapped. “It’s the Brain.”
A door squeaked open. A voice that was a thick and muffled monotone said: “Randolph Corlears is dead.”
Murphy sighed audibly. “Sure boss,” he bragged. “Didn’t I say I’d bring it off okeh?”
“You did,” boomed the Brain, “and you’re a damned liar. It wasn’t okeh. Two seconds after the job was done, the place was swarming with federal men. There’s a leak in your organization, Murphy. I hold you responsible. You’ll kill the man who squawked to the G-men or I’ll fire you. Know the way I fire a man?”
“Uh huh,” grunted Murphy from a dry mouth.
“In a box with six handles. That’s the only way, Murphy.”
Footsteps in the darkness were followed by the closing of a door and the click of a light switch. In the light, Squid Murphy looked down into Sally Vergane’s face. The girl’s rouged lips curled insolently. “Who powdered your puss, Squid?” For Murphy looked as though he was quite ready to be shipped in the Brain’s six-handled box.
Murphy pushed the girl away from him. She put a cigarette in her lips, where it quivered, unlighted. “Sometimes,” she said, in a far-away voice, “that Brain reminds me of Wolf Hollis; when he gets mad like that, I mean.”
“Nuts!” Murphy croaked. “The Feds cornered Hollis in an up-state farmhouse. After they’d sho
t the joint full of holes and tossed tear gas, Wolf set the dump on fire. Must have figured he’d rather burn with his own matches than in the chair.”
“Still,” Sally said, “I feel sometimes like Wolf is near me. But he’s got to be dead, or he’d come to me; wouldn’t he, Squid?”
THE DOOR of the basement room banged open. Four men came in, with a fifth who was half supported by one of the others. Squid Murphy slid his hands into his pockets where his fingers squirmed. His mouth became all but lipless. He looked the men up and down.
“Feds,” he said slowly. “You had to run in with the Feds. You got Corlears and then, because things weren’t excitin’ enough for you, you yells for the Feds. Where’n hell’s the rest of you?”
One of the gunmen walked over to the table and tossed down his gun. His hands were a little shaky. “Don’t try to be funny, Squid. Somebody passed the Feds a tip-off. They were out after Lefty and Lewey. Now they’ll be gunning for the whole mob, ’cause at least two of the G-boys got shot to hell. Couple of our gang got it. The rest is comin’ back here—if they can get back.”
“Lefty!” rapped Squid Murphy.
The big, blond, dish-faced rodman who supported the wounded Agent X, blinked at Squid Murphy. Murphy went over and seized Agent X by the collar. X rolled his eyelids back a little and stared blankly at Murphy.
“Lewey Cassino!” Murphy sneered. “Wolf Hollis’s right-hand man, and you collect lead from one of Uncle Sam’s boy scouts. Losin’ your grip, fella.”
X managed a sickly grin. “I sent the Fed who plugged me all the way, though. That’s something, Squid.”
Murphy took out his right hand and jammed a thumb into the ribs of the man called Lefty. “You get the hell out of here with your colicky baby. What’d you bring him here for? I said any of you worms that got stepped on by the Feds, stayed on the spot.”
Lefty rasped: “Lewey ain’t dyin’. He needs a doc. What if I’d left him there and the Feds had worked him over and he had squawked?”
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 7 Page 43